Whenever I visit the tiny local florist I am the only customer and the most bizarre thing happened when I stopped off there last Friday evening. The entire floor was filled with buckets and buckets of multi-coloured roses. It was so full there was barely room to navigate to the register to pay. I thought they must be for a Saturday morning wedding and asked the florist (who is also the business owner) the question.

She told me that all 110 bunches were already sold, but not to a wedding party. They were reserved for a guy who bought 110 bunches of 10 roses every Friday evening.

“What does he do with a thousand roses every week?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” she said, as she shrugged her shoulders.

Those Friday evening roses are worth quite a bit to her business, $3,000 is probably more money than she takes in for most of the rest of the week.

Being twice as curious about your customers as you are about your products and services and caring enough to understand what they do and why will help you to serve them better. And the flipside is it may even help you to find new opportunities to grow your business.

Image by Farrukh.